scholarly journals Humanizing Refugee Research in a Turbulent World

Refuge ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-69
Author(s):  
Oliver Bakewell

This essay adopts a critical perspective of the idea of humanizing refugee research. It argues that much social scientific research is intrinsically dehumanizing, as it simplifies and reduces human experience to categories and models that are amenable to analysis. Attempts to humanize research may productively challenge and unsettle powerful and dominant hegemonic structures that frame policy and research on forced migration. However, it may replace them with new research frameworks, now imbued authority as representing more authentic or real-life experiences. Rather than claiming the moral high ground of humanizing research, the more limited, and perhaps more honest, ambition should be to recognize the inevitable dehumanization embedded in refugee research and seek to dehumanize differently.

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 737-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Gess ◽  
Christoph Geiger ◽  
Matthias Ziegler

Abstract. Although the development of research competency is an important goal of higher education in social sciences, instruments to measure this outcome often depend on the students’ self-ratings. To provide empirical evidence for the utility of a newly developed instrument for the objective measurement of social-scientific research competency, two validation studies across two independent samples were conducted. Study 1 ( n = 675) provided evidence for unidimensionality, expected differences in test scores between differently advanced groups of students as well as incremental validities over and above self-perceived research self-efficacy. In Study 2 ( n = 82) it was demonstrated that the competency measured indeed is social-scientific and relations to facets of fluid and crystallized intelligence were analyzed. Overall, the results indicate that the test scores reflected a trainable, social-scientific, knowledge-related construct relevant to research performance. These are promising results for the application of the instrument in the evaluation of research education courses in higher education.


Author(s):  
Isabelle Brantl ◽  
Ariadni Michalitsi-Psarrou ◽  
Barbara Klein ◽  
Minas Pertselakis ◽  
Christos Ntanos ◽  
...  

AbstractThe phenomenon of missing children is complex, further complicated by the specific circumstances of missing unaccompanied migrant minors. Owing to the (often forced) migration, these children have moved through different countries with diverse legislation and work practices. The international nature of these cases leads to confusion about the responsibility of different actors. Additionally, for these cases, little data are available. This article critically assesses current work practices in the EU. It also introduces a new practical solution based on empirical data from 26 international expert interviews, proposing a new alert system for missing children cases to improve the efficiency in responding to them and the international communication between stakeholders to improve the situation of missing unaccompanied migrant minors. The solution is currently in use by three organisations and has already been used in more than 85 real-life cases. It is concluded that it holds the potential to connect actors in a new, efficient way and prevent children, and unaccompanied migrant minors particularly, from falling off the grid. It is also highlighted that the situation of unaccompanied migrant minors is highly disadvantaged, and new, homogenous legislation among the EU member states that does not discriminate against the rights of migrant minors is imperative. New research should also actively involve them to better grasp their situation before and during their disappearance.


Author(s):  
Peter Hart-Brinson

This chapter explains the generational theory of Karl Mannheim and enumerates five challenges that scholars face when studying generational change. It shows how these changes have impeded social scientific research on generations and why research on Millennials, Generation X, and other broad cohorts is flawed from its first premises. To counteract the existing generational mythology, this chapter outlines what is required to produce social scientific studies of generational change. Recent scholarship on the “social generation” provides a theoretical and methodological opening for finally solving Mannheim’s “problem of generations.” Building on cross-disciplinary scholarship on the cognitive and cultural dimensions of the process of imagination, this chapter argues that the “social imagination” is the key concept that helps explain how public opinion about gay marriage changed.


2013 ◽  
pp. 1523-1550
Author(s):  
Jens Jensen ◽  
David L. Groep

Modern science increasingly depends on international collaborations. Large instruments are expensive and have to be funded by several countries, and they generate very large volumes of data that must be archived and analysed. Scientific research infrastructures, e-Infrastructures, or cyber infrastructures support these collaborations and many others. In this chapter we look at the issue of trust for such infrastructures, particularly when scaling up from a small one. This growth can be “natural,” as more researchers are added, but can also be dramatic if whole new communities are added, possibly with different requirements. Our focus is on authentication, since for most realistic infrastructures, authentication is the foundation upon which further security is built. Our aim has been to focus on real-life experiences and examples, distilling them into practical advice.


2000 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Kruger

Sociological and anthropological insights and the study of the Hebrew Bible: A review. This article reviews the main trends in the social-scientific study of the Hebrew Bible. It focuses on the following central issues: the theoretical principles underlying this approach, anthropologists and the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew Bible and comparative anthropology, anthropological evidence from African cultures, and the Hebrew Bible in social-scientific research: perils and prospects.


Exchange ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-17
Author(s):  
Erik Sengers

AbstractThis paper offers an introduction in religious market theory on the basis of the theme of conversion. Conversions have everything to do with the religious market. Where people are looking for religious satisfaction, they will turn themselves to religious organisations that are willing to give that on certain conditions. Starting from the assumption of the rational actor, the theory makes some strong hypotheses on religious organisations and the religious market. What does the religious market look like, what are the basic characteristics of this market, and how can religious organisations interact with that market? However, when we discuss social-scientific research on conversion in Europe, the limits of religious market theory come to the fore. In the conclusion, the main questions that arise from religious market theory for the project Conversion Careers and Culture Politics in Pentecostalism are being discussed.


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